Ocean Grove and Why No Religious Case for Gay Marriage

ANDREW MILLS/THE STAR-LEDGERRyan Kelly, an innkeeper at the Ocean Plaza Bed & Breakfast in Ocean Grove, displays a blue solidarity flag that signifies support for marriage equality for gay couples.

Today, I would like to suggest that a recent article by a national writer has everything to do with controversies such as the current one over allowing a lesbian couple to have a civil union ceremony at Ocean Grove.

So, if readers will indulge me, let's revisit yet again last month's Newsweekcover story purporting to make "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage."

Now, plenty of journalists have made secular arguments for, and against, gay marriage. But what has me curious today is why Lisa Miller wants to make a specifically religious argument.

As is known, the director of the state Division on Civil Rights recently ruled that a lesbian couple can move forward with a discrimination complaint against the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association.

J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo made his decision despite the association directors' objection that holding a same-sex ceremony on the grounds would violate their Bible-based religious beliefs.

In light of that ruling, let's look at Miller's audience in her Dec. 15 report. She has written a cover story in a national publication, with a huge circulation.

Her audience, I assume, is not so much evangelicals, who believe the Bible, and can easily see through her argument.

I presented a fairly common sense conservative take on what the Bible says about marriage. I suspect that many evangelicals who read my posts said, of course, what you've described is pretty obvious to anybody who takes the Bible for what it says.

But I would suggest that Miller is trying to persuade a secular audience, one without a solid understanding of the Bible, and without a commitment to believe it, with an argument that "looks" like the real thing.

If you're not really familiar with what a genuine dollar bill looks like, it's easy to get fooled with a counterfeit bill.

To further "bolster" her argument, Miller also tries flattery. (But beware flattery.)

"Recent progressive scholars have argued," she says at one point, figuring that we also flatter ourselves as "progressive."

"A mature view of scriptural authority," she says elsewhere, "requires us, as we have in the past, to move beyond literalism." Yes, those unfamiliar with the Bible, those with a "mature" view of scripture, are smarter than those who take the Bible literally (and seriously).

Miller continues: "The Bible was written for a world so unlike our own, it's impossible to apply its rules, at face value, to ours."

Yes, those long-ago people, they did stuff like murder, adultery and stealing, and needed rules against those bad things. We moderns, of course, would never do stuff like that.

But why is Miller so anxious to present a "Bible" argument? Isn't just a secular argument good enough?

First, a religious argument, even a false one, if believed, always has a power that a secular argument just doesn't carry. After all, if God says something, that carries more weight than you or me.

Second, gay marriage would gain enormous support if there develops a general consensus (among the secular public) that even the Bible supports gay marriage.

One effect, in my view, would to be to put conservative evangelicals who oppose gay marriage in a corner. The debate would no longer pit the non-religious, who support gay marriage, against conservative evangelicals, who oppose gay marriage on biblical grounds.

Instead, supporters of gay marriage would be enormously strengthened because they have persuaded a vast number of new people: people who "like" the Bible even as they don't really understand it, people who want to be liberal and nice and "fair" to gays.

For example, one person who responded late Wednesday night to my previous post ("No Religious Case for Gay Marriage Part 2") expressed just the approach that Miller is appealing to. (See here)

"Just because a group of religious fanatics claim to know the truth of the inspired 'word of God' doesn't mean that they actually possess such 'truth,'" writes jamesgregg76, who describes Miller's article as "highly persuasive."

He adds:

"There are more figurative/symbolic Christian interpretations of the Bible that view homosexuality and gay marriage as a good thing that should be accepted and celebrated by our society. To say that the Christian Fundamentalist view is the only one that should be given any credence by our governing bodies, is flat out wrong and unconstitutional."

Now, even a quick look at the news shows that evangelicals are hardly dictating laws to legislators.

But, remember Miller's thesis -- that an "inclusive" interpretation of the Bible is as good as or better than the "what it actually says" interpretation. If her thesis gains common acceptance in our culture, what do we do with narrow-minded fanatics such as those in Ocean Grove?

In my view, the common acceptance of Miller's view of the Bible's teaching on homosexuality would make it very easy to apply anti-discrimination laws to that small, "bigoted" minority who insist that their Bible teaches against gay marriage.

That would be a fatal blow to the owners of any campground who insist, on biblical grounds, that they cannot permit a same-sex ceremony on their property.

After all, who are they to insist that their narrow view of what the Bible teaches is correct, and non-discriminatory.